Hacking Web Services, Shreeraj Shah. The development and use of Web services is growing at an incredible rate, and so too are the security issues surrounding these next-generation Web applications. This book offers a practical guide for understanding Web services security and assessment methodologies. Written for intermediate-to-advanced security professionals and developers, the book provides an in-depth look at new concepts and tools used for Web services security. Beginning with a brief introduction to Web services technologies, the book discusses Web services assessment methodology, WSDL—an XML format describing Web services as a set of endpoints operating on SOAP messages containing information—and the need for secure coding. Various development issues and open source technologies used to secure and harden applications offering Web services are also covered. Throughout the book, detailed case studies, real-life demonstrations, and a variety of tips and techniques teach developers how to write tools for Web services.

Charles River Media; www.charlesriver.com; 1-58450-480-3; 350 pp.

Rails Recipes, Chad Fowler. This book offers a collection of recipes that take readers through modern Rails techniques step by step, mixing the ingredients to create world-class Web applications. Readers will learn how to use this large, powerful tool effectively, harness its power, and write real-world applications with it.

From the latest Ajax effects to time-saving automation tips for your development process, this book shows how the experts have already solved key problems with Rails such as using generators to automate repetitive coding tasks, creating sophisticated role-based authentication schemes, adding live search and live preview to a site, and running tests when anyone checks in code.

O'Reilly; www.oreilly.com; 0-9776 166-0-6; 2006; 344 pp.

Invisible Engines: How Software Platforms Drive Innovation and Transform Industries, David S. Evans, Andrei Hagiu, and Richard Schmalensee. The authors argue that to understand the successes of software platforms, we must first understand their role as a technological meeting ground where application developers and end users converge. Apple, Microsoft, and Google, for example, charge developers little or nothing for using their platforms and make most of their money from end users; Sony Play-Station and other game consoles, by contrast, subsidize users and make more money from developers, who pay royalties for access to the code they need to write games. More applications attract more users, and more users attract more applications, all of which leads to more profits.

The authors explore this story through the lens of the companies that have mastered this platform-balancing act. They offer detailed studies of the personal computer, videogame console, personal digital assistant, smart mobile phone, and digital media software platform industries, focusing on the business decisions made by industry players to drive profits and stay a step ahead of the competition. Shorter discussions of Internet-based software platforms provide an important glimpse into a future in which the way we buy, pay, watch, listen, learn, and communicate will change forever.

MIT Press; mitpress.mit.edu; 0-262-05085-4; 400 pp.

An Introduction to Design Patterns in C++ with Qt 4, Alan Ezust and Paul Ezust. This book provides a complete tutorial and reference that assumes no previous knowledge of C, C++, objects, or patterns. Readers will walk through every core concept, one step at a time, learning through an extensive collection of Qt 4.1-tested examples and exercises.

Open Source Systems, Ernesto Damiani, Brian Fitzgerald, Walt Scacchi, Marco Scotto, and Giancarlo Succi, eds. In the past few years, a wider research community has become increasingly aware of the tremendous contribution that open source development makes to the software industry, business, and society in general. Software engineering researchers explore OSS specifically with respect to development tools and methodologies, while organizational scientists and economists seek to understand how open sources have brought large communities of people to help each other effectively.

This book collects the proceedings of the Second International Conference on Open Software. OSS 2006 provided the foundation conference for the IFIP TC 2 WG 2.13 on Open Source Software and attracted many researchers world-wide with interest in how OSS is produced and its huge innovation potential in many different application fields and OSS-innovative business models.